


To The Sea

by jungle_ride



Category: The Little Mermaid (1989)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate AU: Red String of Fate, Soulmate Name as Tattoo, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 22:38:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11000475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jungle_ride/pseuds/jungle_ride
Summary: She, the great mass of water others called ocean, had betrayed him. Her act of unfaithfulness had been unexpected and unwarranted. He had done nothing to deserve her wrath. Hadn’t he always been a faithful lover, living his life, upon her body, caresses it with the kisses of his ships. And when he had been too young to know how, he had sat upon the fishing boats of others, leaning over the edge and tracing a face into the water, always the same; a woman with big, wide, curious eyes, lips that offered honeyed smiles and flowing hair wild and free, like the soul that lived inside her. It’s the face of your soulmate, Grimsby had told him. Soulmate. That word has haunted Eric all his life.





	To The Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OzQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OzQueen/gifts).



> OMG how much fun did I have writing this too much. Honestly as soon as I saw your prompts and request I knew I wanted to do this couple and I had about a thousand ideas swimming (no pun instead) in my mind. I decided to go for something that mixed a bit of cannon with a combination of a few things you asked for. 
> 
> In the end I actually ran out of time, to fully expand and fit everything that I had originally had in my mind which was basically a whole retelling of the film with the AU Soulmate twist which then would have combined your Eric/Vanessa prompts as well...however I may have been a little too ambitious with that idea considering how little free time I actually have now days and the time constraint of the exchange. Anyway I really hope I have created something that you will at least enjoy.

Eric wakes to the sound of singing, a gentle melody that washes over him, stirring him back from the dark depths of unconsciousness. His eyes shift, under the delicate skin of his eyelids, as slowly he begins to revive. He can feel the sand beneath him; smell the salty scent of the ocean, hear the gentle lapping of its waves against the shore. The storm has now long since passed, giving way to the tranquil calm he’s grown so accustomed to. A flare of anger spikes inside him as he recalls the chaos that led him to this moment.

She, the great mass of water others called ocean, had betrayed him. Her act of unfaithfulness had been unexpected and unwarranted. He had done nothing to deserve her wrath. Hadn’t he always been a faithful lover, living his life, upon her body, caresses it with the kisses of his ships. And when he had been too young to know how, he had sat upon the fishing boats of others, leaning over the edge and tracing a face into the water, always the same; a woman with big, wide, curious eyes, lips that offered honeyed smiles and flowing hair wild and free, like the soul that lived inside her. It’s the face of your soulmate, Grimsby had told him. Soulmate. That word has haunted Eric all his life. His five year old self had not known what Grimsby had meant by the comment, and it was only a few years later that he dared to ask the older man.

It was the Gods, Grimsby had taught him. When they had created the living they had used the light of the stars to breathe life into them. The only problem had been that a stars power could not be contain within one being, its energy was too great for one person to hold alone and so the Gods had split them into two halves. But a star needed to be whole; without its counterpart the light inside could start to dim or disappear entirely.

The Gods had therefore tied a red string around each half’s body, that would forever connected them. The string itself was unbreakable, able to stretch across distance, circumstances and time, able to bend and tangle but never break in order that those two connecting pieces could once more find their way back to each other. That was soulmates. It was a natural phenomenon. A blessing or so Eric had been told. From his own personal experience Eric would call it more curse than blessing.

At the age of nine it had seemed pleasant enough; an excitement had begun buzzing in his blood at the prospect. He was, at heart, a hopeless romantic, or so Grimsby liked to say. It hadn’t been until his soul markings had appeared that the more troubling side of soulmates had blindsided him.

Soul markings were tattoos designs of names, but unlike the tattoos of man, that were drilled in with a needle and ink, the placement of them you’re choosing, these markings appeared of their own volition. You had no control over anything and the ink itself shimmered on the skin, shifting in the light to indicate the significance of them. According to the legend, the markings were caused by the stars light inside of you reaching out and offering its own help in reconnecting itself. It inked the name of your soulmate onto your flesh, or at least it was supposed to be a name. Eric had not thought to prepare himself for something different.

On his sixteen birthday in the place of a name Eric had the words _to the sea,_ scrawled onto his right wrist. To say it had surprised him would be an understatement; still somehow when he had looked at the image, tracing the words with the tips of his fingers it had also made a strange sort of sense. _To the sea._ Eric had always had an ache for the ocean, wanted to be near the water, if not on it. They would make for a unseal coupling but then his kingdom depended on her to survive. It seemed reasonable enough then that the prince of a said kingdom should be bound to the source of its life.

Grimsby had waved the young adolescence notion away, telling him not to be so daft. That the words must mean he had to sail the seas to find her. There was a girl out there for Eric, and Grimsby was going to make sure they found her; thus had begun their endless years of travel. Grimsby had dragged him for one country to the next, to whether they were an eligible girl with the name Eric tattooed on her. Eric had been content enough, happy to ride the waves both literally and figuratively. The hopefulness of his nature mostly drowned out the voice inside his mind that offered nothing but dark imaginings for his supposed soul mate. The dreams of a woman drowning in the sea, pregnant with the child he was supposed to marry, haunted him nightly but when the daylight came and he could once more smell the salt in the air and dip his hand in the cool water, his nightmares were soothed.

They had been returning from another unsuccessful search in the kingdom of Glowerhaven when the storm had hit. In all his years of sea travel Eric had never experienced a storm, it was an unmerciful sight. In a split second the once clear crystal blue world, his heart loved in ways still extraordinary and peculiar to him, had turned angry grey. The skies above losing their bright light, roared out in anger, flashes of pure white streaking across it. One blot of lighting had hit the sails, setting the ship ablaze. Eric vaguely remembers trying to steer the ship ashore, only to fall into the reefs mouth, its sharp jagged teeth claiming the wood and splintering it to nothing. He had been cast into the ocean, its waters folding around him and pulling him under, to certain death. _To the sea._

A hand coming to cup his cheek and fingers stroking at the skin so softly, it was barely there pulls Eric from his thoughts and brings him back into reality. Although Eric cannot yet understand the words the stranger above him is sinning, the intention of them, a strange mixture of joy and longing winds its way around him. The voice is female, he can tell by the inflictions of the tone, it’s warm and sweet like honey tea and it leaves Eric with a peaceful contentment that blooms in his chest, spreading it’s warmth through each nerve of his body.

Eyes fluttering open, Eric’s pupils shrink suddenly as the midday sun floods into his irises. Squinting through the pain Eric finally catches a glimpse of the female hovering above him. Her face is bathed in sunlight, a halo of light surrounding her, framing her fiery red hair that falls over her shoulders. Her eyes, bright blue are wide and innocent, full of wonder as she looks tenderly down on him. Her hand is still tracing the curves of his face and he lifts his own hand up instinctively to find hers. At the connection a jolt sparks through him, a sudden flooding and heightening of his senses. He can feel the residue of salt left on her skin from each droplet of water that has dried. The gentle rise and fall of her chest, matches the rhythm of his own, the same hitched intake of breathe coming from them both as Eric intertwines their fingers together. He understands in that moment what he has just found, or rather who.

“It’s you.” He says somewhat hoarsely, his voice still recovering from the salt water he had inhaled. He leans up on his elbows, eyes glued to hers. The world is becoming a lot clearer to him, the dazed after affects from being shipwrecked fading giving way to new clarity.

“You saved me. You’re the one, the one I’ve been looking for.” Excitement is starting to take over now and his voice becomes a reflection of it, unable to contain his exhilaration. He pulls himself closer to her, so close that their noses almost bump together.

“You’re my soulmate.” He whispers, eyes glued to hers, memorises by the slightest refection of light inside them. She smiles then, the tips of her cherry lips turning up at the edges slowly. The expression in her face shifts, like light shimmering on the waters surface. It’s as if something that has troubled her for years has only now suddenly made sense.

“Soulmates.” She whispers back, almost questionably, as if testing the word to uncover the meaning behind it and then beaming a moment later when she hears it echoing back in her own ears.

“Soulmates.” She says again, drawing her bottom lip through her teeth shyly as she says it still a little hesitant that she’s doing the right thing. Eric is only desperate to be closer, there’s a deep setting urge within his bones, an ache from the sheer need of it. The air between them is electric, sparking with the charge of two lost soul’s finally reconnecting. Eric is giddy, light headed and drunk off this new understanding of himself, this new life he’s been present with. Today soulmate finally means blessing.

Closing what little gap there is between them he press their forehands together gently, reassuringly. His other hand shifts on the sand as he moves, brushing against something familiar but not. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he finds himself comparing it to a fish, but it’s off slightly, it’s not at all slimy. His hand glides effortlessly across it, the girl in front of him gasps a little, and it’s her reaction that has him pulling back slightly, just enough so that he can see what his hand is pressed against. It takes him a second to fully register what it is he’s seeing and another five before it sinks it.

“You’re a…” he begins, voice trailing off as he looks down at the green tail she has in the place of legs.

“You’re a…” he tries again, only to find that the final word gets stuck in his throat, caught in the net of disbelief. _Mermaid._ The unspoken word hangs in the air between them. A hurricane of thoughts churns through Erics mind; a reassessment of what he thought he knew to be true, of fact and fiction, reality and fairytale.

The woman in front of him hangs her head, eyes dropping to the ground. Eric catches her expression and his stomach drops as he watches her begin to shrink away from him, shoulders rising up as if to protect herself from an onslaught of hatred she was obviously expecting.

“It’s amazing.” He says suddenly tilting her chin upwards so she is once more looking at him. He doesn’t think about the fact that their interspecies and the issues and problems it’s bound to cause, he doesn’t think about how they are going to make this work because they just will. This is his soulmate and he’ll be damn if he lets her go now.

She smiles at him shyly and all Eric wants to do is kiss her. He’s leaning in to do so when Max’s bark breaks through, shattering the moment. The mermaid pulls back looking over his shoulder towards the direction the noise came from, frantic and fearful. Before Eric has a chance to protest she is diving back into the ocean, sending him one final longing glance and a half wave before disappearing underneath the waves.

“Eric, oh you really delight in these sadistic strains in my blood pressure don’t you?” Its Grimsby voice, relief dripping off every syllable, though Eric doesn’t really pay him much mind, still lost to the red haired mermaid who’d saved him.

“She’s a mermaid!” Eric says still almost disbelieving, though the proof of her existent had been right in front of him

“Pardon?” Grimsby says, as he pulls him to his feet.

“My soulmate, she rescued me, and she’s a mermaid.” Eric says, stumbling towards the oceans edge and then he’s laughing, the sound bursting from him like a bubbling spring. He can’t help it.

Mermaids?! Why had he not considered it? When other sailors had made comments about merfolk he had been intrigued, interested even but not for one second had he consider the truth those legends may have held, there seemed to be no evince to support such notions. Nautical nonsense Grimsby had said and in the end Eric had agreed. At least that’s how it had appeared until this very moment. Oh how wrong they’d been. How ignorant.

“Ah Eric I think you’ve swallowed a bit too much seawater.” Grimsby laughs, putting his arm around Eric to hold him up “Off we go, come along Max.”

Grimsby begins to lead Eric away from the shore and back towards the castle. Eric glances over his shoulder watching as Max jumps and barks in the waves as if looking for something, or someone. Eric smiles and looks down at his right wrist reading the words for the millionth time, but only now fully understanding their meaning. _To the sea._ And to the sea he would go.


End file.
